1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the field of securing a strap handle to a preformed plastics container body.
Large plastics containers such as paint cans are generally provided with a wire or strap handle made of steel or plastics; this handle being usually retained on the container body by rivets or lugs moulded integrally with the container body and projecting outwardly thereof. Such outward projections from an otherwise uninterrupted surface cause difficulties in the high speed decoration of the containers and hence moves have been made to introduce alternative means of retaining the handles using inwardly projecting sockets on the container body and matching projections on the ends of the handle.
2. Description of Related Art
The sockets may be moulded as an integral part of the container, but this necessitates the use of collapsible core moulds which are complicated, expensive, and prone to operational problems.
In a method and apparatus described in European Patent Application 0207764 the sockets are cold-formed using standard tooling after the decoration of the container has been accomplished, and oversized projections on the two ends of the plastic handle are forced into the sockets using an appropriate handle assembly machine.
The disadvantages of this prior method lie in its being a two-stage process and in the accuracy of the positional alignment required on the second machine by which the handle projections are located against the mouths of the sockets and forced into them.